For many individuals, one of the simplest ways to be taught a brand new talent is to dive proper in and create one thing. If you wish to find out about synthetic intelligence, you may construct and prepare a small predictive mannequin. Or whether it is pc engineering that you simply wish to higher perceive, designing a customized CPU may be probably the greatest paths ahead. In fact you must begin small to keep away from getting swamped by the main points and giving up the train. You wouldn’t wish to begin by making an attempt to copy ChatGPT or an Intel Core Extremely CPU, as an example.
YouTuber “MINT after hours” not too long ago got down to construct a customized CPU to higher perceive how computer systems work at a low stage. The consequence, referred to as EPROMINT, was deliberately stored easy to make sure that the objective was achievable. This 8-bit CPU is considerably harking back to the 6502s and Z80s that had been widespread within the Nineteen Eighties. However in some methods, it’s superior.
Who wants IMAX while you’ve bought EPROMINT? (📷: MINT after hours)
Regardless of being constructed of macro-scale DIP chips on perfboard, EPROMINT has a extra versatile instruction set and extra highly effective ALU than the CPUs of yesteryear that impressed its design. However whereas this 8 MHz behemoth might need some benefits over 40-year-old chips, its efficiency is by no means spectacular by right this moment’s requirements.
That doesn’t imply that EPROMINT doesn’t have some tips up its sleeve, nonetheless. As MINT after hours simply demonstrated in a brand new video, when hooked as much as a easy show, the CPU has what it takes to play movies. Positive, they might be monochrome and low-resolution movies, however they’re very recognizable and have fairly first rate body charges besides. There’s now no query that EPROMINT can play The Matrix, however I nonetheless marvel, can it play Doom?
Which may be a stretch, however we now have seen some fairly wild issues in the previous. Whereas we wait to see if MINT after hours makes an try at operating Doom, be sure you try the video beneath. It’s a must to see the CPU in motion to actually respect what this 8-bit beast can do.
